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The Beach HouseThe Beach House by Mary Alice Monroe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


What an unexpected gem of a read!  I originally picked it because I've been focusing on novels with a sense of place more like where I live to try & help me with my own writing struggles with sense of place. Yes, I live in NJ and not in a traditional shore town, but, we are right on the coast & directly across the bay from a barrier peninsula.  (I'm still not over Hurricane Irene & the area of our Northwestern NJ home (inland) was hit worse than we were here on the coast! Anyhoo...)  My Aunt loved this book so I thought it was high time to give it a try.  Plus, I love Southern novels.

I didn't expect to be swept up into the story of this novel, nor did I expect it to be such a touching & emotional read.  For many this has been & would be a great 'beach read' as it's often referred to!  For me, it touched on areas very close to home (spoiler: one of the main characters, head of the family, has cancer & passes away - my father.in.law just passed away this Sunday afternoon of cancer) and because of that, it wasn't as light as what I consider a beach read to be, but I didn't pick it up with the expectation of it being a beach read so that is no problem for me.  It was one of those reads where I slowed down as I drew closer to the end because I didn't want it to end.      


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